


Rest In Peace

by eracitor



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 17:20:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12658014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eracitor/pseuds/eracitor
Summary: Regulus Black has been declared dead, and his best friends are trying to cope.





	Rest In Peace

It was the summer of 1979, and the boys sat in Barty Crouch Jr.’s basement. The Lestrange brothers lounged on the couch, Dolohov leaned against the pool table, and Rosier sat at Rod’s feet, his knees pressed to his chest. Snape stood by the wall somewhat awkwardly. They all listened as Barty Crouch Jr. stomped down the stairs, still yelling at his father.

“I said it’s none of your bloody business, Pop!” Barty Crouch Jr. bellowed, before sitting next to Rabastan on the couch.

“So?” Rod asked.

“So what?” Barty Crouch Jr. echoed.

“So...what now?”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at, Lestrange,” he shot back defensively.

“Aren’t we touchy?” Rosier murmured, causing Barty Crouch Jr. to send him a deadly look.

“You think?” he retorted incredulously. “Our best friend just died and you have the audacity to ask that.”

“Do we even really know that he’s dead?” Rod’s little brother, Baz, cleared his voice, glancing around. “I mean, o’course they declared him dead after weeks of him being missing...but how do we know, you know?”

“He’s dead,” Dolohov grimaced. “There’s just a feeling in the air. You just know that someone’s not there anymore.”

Rosier pressed his lips to his legs a little harder than he needed to.

“Regulus is dead,” Dolohov repeated.

“Where’s Malfoy?” Rosier’s head shot up, glancing around the room as if Malfoy was hiding.

“He’s with Cissa,” Severus piped up.

“Yeah, but why?”

“Because they’re engaged?”

“Bell and Rod are engaged,” Rosier pointed out.

“They’re not in love,” Dolohov commented.

Rod looked taken aback, perhaps that someone had noticed but didn’t seem to react to the implication he wasn’t in love. “I’m a bad boyfriend,” he joked, but guilt flashed across his face. He was worse than they could know.

“Or maybe you’re just a good friend,” Rosier replied darkly. “Malfoy should be  _ here _ .”

Everyone was silent for a moment. No one knew what to do or say. Rod was the oldest of the group, a few years out of high school. He’d been putting off his marriage for years, which was common knowledge.

There wasn’t really a point putting it off any longer.

“We don’t necessarily know...that  _ he _ killed him,” Dolohov reminded the crew and they all grimaced. 

“Who else would it be?” Rosier snapped.

“Maybe some Order of the Phoenix cunts. I don’t fucking know!” Dolohov growled back.

Baz shook his head. “Does it really matter? If he’s dead--”

“He is dead, Rabastan,” his older brother said gently.

“ _ If _ he’s dead,” Baz shot Rod a dirty look. “There’s nothing we can do. We knew when we started what the Dark Lord was capable of.

“Yeah, but Regulus was a perfect Death Eater,” Rosier argued. “What in Merlin’s Beard could that guy possibly due to piss off the Dark Lord. He’s a pureblooded Death Eater, for christ’s sake.”

“Wrong place, wrong time,” Severus said in his slow, deliberate voice, and all the boys sat around, thinking about it for a moment. The gravity of his words rang too loudly in all of them; Regulus was so young, only 18, and that could have been anyone.

“Rod, you been speaking to the family?” Barty Crouch Jr. said, pacing slowly.

“His mother’s a damn mess,” Rodolphus nodded. “Been howling and weeping for weeks. His dad is in denial I think. He spends a lot of time in the basement, doing Merlin knows what.”

“What about your maniac fiance,” Rosier sneered.

“Enough about my maniac fiance,” Rod said through clenched teeth.

“Is she sad? She always seemed pretty close with Regulus. Cissa too,” Barty Crouch Jr. asked.

Rod had to think about it. He’d been particularly disgusted in the beginning, when she had acted sad about Regulus being missing, but in a distant way, like she was talking about someone else’s cousin. And today, when he’d been declared dead and they’d had a funeral, she had dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief but Rod hadn’t seen any actual tears come out.

“Let’s just say if the Dark Lord had asked her to kill Reg himself, there’s a good possibility she wouldn’t have hesitated,” Rod replied gruffly, still annoyed that his fiance was so heartless. Then again, she had been might suspicious of his relationship with Regulus. 

“I spoke with Malfoy earlier,” Dolohov said, shifting uncomfortably. “He said Cissa is real broken up. Saying that it’s too much and they need to quit the Death Eaters, as if that’s a real thing.”

“You don’t quit being a Death Eater,” Snape breathed out monotonously.

“That’s what  _ I _ said,” Dolohov replied. 

“I kind of want to too though,” Rosier admitted. 

“Really, Evan?” Barty Crouch Jr. asked incredulously.

Rosier pressed his eyes into the knees of his slacks, his eyes rimmed red with unshed tears and he pressed a palm to his forehead. “I keep thinking about it. About all these people he’s killed, and he makes it seem like he’s only killing the dirty mudbloods and the traitors but I saw him kill Goyle’s grandpa, who is a pure blooded veteran of the dark arts, I mean, we  _ all _ know that. And I remember the last time I saw Regulus he seemed a little bit frantic. But I didn’t think anything of it because he’s kind of a busy guy, always stacking a lot on his plate. And I keep thinking, you know, maybe he needed help doing a task or whatnot for the Dark Lord. I know he’s not really the type to ask for help, but I should have offered. And I didn’t. And now he’s dead.”

“I saw him too,” Baz admitted. “He had all these books stacked up, all about dark arts that he got from his house. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dark Lord gave him some task that is well beyond Regulus’s age or capability and then killed him because of it.”

Rod shook his head. “Sirius Black came up to me and Bella. Said that he knew it was one of us. Apparently, he’d always tried to get Regulus to make some friends in Gryffindor and Reg never listened.”

“I would never kill Regulus,” Rosier murmured into his slacks, tears falling out of his eyes, and Baz got up off the couch to sit next to him and put an arm around him. “How dare that stupid Sirius say something like that. Like it’s only a real friendship if you make a gang and terrorize other kids with your magical prowess at Hogwarts.”

“Despicable,” Snape commented.

“Absolutely,” Dolohov hissed in agreement. “That prideful bastard, always did think being in Gryffindor gave him a bloody crown.”

“We may not have known what the Dark Lord was going to do to him,” Baz said furiously. “But we were damn good friends. I loved Regulus like a brother. He was good to all of us, and there is nothing in this world that would have made me kill him.”

“Me neither,”  Barty Crouch Jr. nodded.

The rest of the boys nodded quietly, sitting in misery and silence.

A sudden knock on the door startled them, and down raced Lucius Malfoy, blond hair and all.

“Welcome back, traitor,” Dolohov sneered.

“I wouldn’t be so quick to say that,” Lucius smirked, holding up a gold necklace. “Look what I’ve got.”

All the boys in the room straightened up, peering at the necklace in wonder. These had been outlawed for many years. How Lucius had gotten his hands on one was outrageous. Lucius looked so smug, like he knew how impressive and important he was. “That’s right. Enough moping and more action. You know there’s only one thing any of us would need a time turner for.”

**Author's Note:**

> I keep posting old stories that I finish. This is a short one. I'll probably come back and edit it later.


End file.
